90% of web traffic to be video 'by 2014'

Web to become a video star
Web to become a video star

Video content is set to take over the internet by 2014, with net analysis firm Cisco VNI Forecast predicting big changes for the web by 2014.

From there research, there's a few mind-blowing numbers, including that 64 exabytes per month will be processed on the web in 2014 – four times the amount which is piped through in 2010.

Cisco VNI Forecast also believe that the various forms of video the internet now carries – TV, VoD, Internet Video, and P2P – will account for 91 per cent of consumer traffic.

Beating peers

A new trend will also see streaming video overtake the popularity of P2P networks. Although this is fairly obvious that as web speeds increase, so will the amount of streaming done but Cisco VNI Forecast believes that by the end of this year "peer-to-peer traffic will not be the largest internet traffic type".

Speaking about the findings, Pankaj Patel, senior vice president and general manager, Service Provider Group, Cisco, said: "The Cisco VNI Forecast offers a global snapshot of video's significance in our daily lives and signals the need for further network preparations to support the quadrupling of the Internet and the more than 1 billion online video users by 2014."

Just this week, Sky announced that it is adding streaming and downloads to its Anytime Plus service – bringing web video streaming to the mainstream in the UK.

Via Cnet

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.